Carbine Studios' "Wildstar"

[Nebu]

And I will still ignore this game. All those great promo vids wasted.

100% this. 

So much wasted potential.  It's sad.

[Surlyboi]

Yup. Still don't give a shit. Unless they're paying me, I'm out.

[Rasix]

I'll load it up once, maybe.  Who knows, I'm lazy.

I can't really solo play MMOs anymore, and I don't see a large crowd rushing back to this. Game stunk in too many ways to have improved into a vastly better version. It'd take a FFXIV style redo to make this one palatable for long periods of time.

[sam, an eggplant]

They also said they'd be improving the leveling experience, making the solo kills faster and easier, so you don't need to constantly dodge roll out of stuff while solo leveling in a zen trace state. That was what really turned me off wildstar.

[Nebu]

They also said they'd be improving the leveling experience, making the solo kills faster and easier, so you don't need to constantly dodge roll out of stuff while solo leveling in a zen trace state. That was what really turned me off wildstar.

Getting to 50 wasn't the problem.  Playing after you hit 50 was.

[Rendakor]

I disagree. The leveling experience required way too much focus for me. When they get the solo stuff sorted maybe I'll actually try it again.

[sam, an eggplant]

I disagree. The leveling experience required way too much focus for me. When they get the solo stuff sorted maybe I'll actually try it again.

That is exactly my complaint. I know the endgame had its problems too, don't get me wrong, but I never made it anywhere near max level due to this.

[Rasix]

Yah, I started to wear down in the 30s.  Levels were starting to slow way down and I couldn't keep up that level of concentration for extended periods of time.

MMOs are somewhat of a relaxation activity for me. I can deal with periodic action, I just can't be dodging shit for 2 hours at a time.

I probably would have made it to max level, but I had issues settling on a class. Their class design wasn't my favorite.

[sam, an eggplant]

Totally, that's the "zen-like trance state leveling" I was talking about. I don't want a life and death challenge every time I kill an orc, I want to consume content at a steady pace. Save challenges for boss creatures every half hour or so.

[Nebu]

Proving again that I'm the oddball when it comes to MMO's.  I leveled two toons to 50 no problem.  I enjoyed the pace and the story.  Problem for me was that the game was both dull and punishing to solo players once they hit 50. 

[sam, an eggplant]

At least you got your money's worth. I only got like 15 hours in before quitting in disgust.

[Rendakor]

The beta scared me off; I alt-tab to f13/facebook too often to handle their leveling content. I think I made it to level 10 or so.

[Nebu]

At least you got your money's worth. I only got like 15 hours in before quitting in disgust.

I certainly did.  It was well worth the box cost to me.  It just lacked any kind of 'stickiness'.

[sam, an eggplant]

I don't even want a sticky MMO, personally. I'm going through ESO now and really enjoying the leveling content. When I hit max level, they let you switch to the other factions' areas and do them too. I'll probably do that, then quit. And that's perfectly fine, that's what I want.

And when that's done, I'll do the 8 SWTOR class stories with 12x XP.

[Rasix]

Having played through most of the FFXIV story and all of TSW single player campaign (and most of the dungeons), I really enjoy having a cohesive single player experience to go along with the standard MMO shenanigans.  You can get a sense of closure and worth out of the game without having played it for months on end and seeing all of the endgame content.  TOR did this as well, but I have various hangups with that game that I can never seem to overcome.  Most recent resub lasted all of a couple hours.  I don't get it. I should love the game, but I can't get into anymore. 

I never really got the sense of what the hell I was doing in Wildstar and why I was doing it.  It was like going to scrambled version of Disneyland where Space Mountain sits right next to the jungle cruise.

[Nebu]

I never really got the sense of what the hell I was doing in Wildstar and why I was doing it.  It was like going to scrambled version of Disneyland where Space Mountain sits right next to the jungle cruise.

That's almost exactly how I felt... hence the lack of stick for me.  It was fun, but I never felt like a hero adventuring in a massive world.  It almost felt like a platform game with a bunch of obnoxious other players around. 

[Gimfain]

I would like to do the dungeon content but I hated the solo gameplay, I got just past level 10 during beta when I felt that I had enough of it. I can't do busy work mmo questing and their projection solo play was more busy than fun and interesting.

[apocrypha]

The trajectory this game took was pretty much exactly what was predicted right here by the collective f13 wisdom.

Schild should set us up as an MMO development advisory panel company called "Your MMO Sucks You Suck You Should Feel Bad Now Give Us Half Of Your Kickstarter Cash Ltd".

I can see YMSYSYSFBNGUHOYKC Ltd. going places, really.

[angry.bob]

The trajectory this game took was pretty much exactly what was predicted right here by the collective f13 wisdom.

Schild should set us up as an MMO development advisory panel company called "Your MMO Sucks You Suck You Should Feel Bad Now Give Us Half Of Your Kickstarter Cash Ltd".

I can see YMSYSYSFBNGUHOYKC Ltd. going places, really.

Frankly, game designers could do a whole lot worse for advice than just reading over one of the many threads where we talk about why a certain game sucks and is doomed to fail. Many, if not most of us have been playing online games since UO or before. We've seen countless variations of the same trainwrecks time and time again. We may not know how to keep that train on the tracks but we sure as fuck seem to recognize the very first sign that it's going to come off of them.

[Gimfain]

The trajectory this game took was pretty much exactly what was predicted right here by the collective f13 wisdom.

Schild should set us up as an MMO development advisory panel company called "Your MMO Sucks You Suck You Should Feel Bad Now Give Us Half Of Your Kickstarter Cash Ltd".

I can see YMSYSYSFBNGUHOYKC Ltd. going places, really.

Frankly, game designers could do a whole lot worse for advice than just reading over one of the many threads where we talk about why a certain game sucks and is doomed to fail. Many, if not most of us have been playing online games since UO or before. We've seen countless variations of the same trainwrecks time and time again. We may not know how to keep that train on the tracks but we sure as fuck seem to recognize the very first sign that it's going to come off of them.

Problem is that many people use the same sort of broad arguments without looking at the individual game, and while its damn easy talking about the games where you got it right, people are quiet when they get it wrong.

[Shatter]

This one was easy, I spent 7 levels on a trial and that was enough.  I can't say it was 7 levels of bad, it was just 7 levels of meh.  When I opt to go mow my grass instead of playing it again...yeah that was Wildstar.

[Pendan]

I usually like reading the quest text but could not get into Wildstar quests at all. The last straw for me though was I was about level 10 in beta and given a timed quest to kill a certain number of MOBs. Right after I started 1 other guy showed up to also do the quest. Was not enough MOBs then and I failed. I can understand when a game can't handle hundreds of players in a zone on first day but when 1 other person doing the same quest messes it up I was out.

[Malakili]

I really liked some of their housing promo videos back when this was in beta, but even for the low low price of free I don't think I care enough to check it out now.

[Nebu]

I really liked some of their housing promo videos back when this was in beta, but even for the low low price of free I don't think I care enough to check it out now.

Like everything else, the housing promo videos were better than the actual housing.  You're missing nothing. 

[Trippy]

Though people do say housing is the best part of the game.

[Signe]

The housing IS the best part of the game... if you can manage to get to it.

[Threash]

The last crowfall update on their combat system had a quote from J Todd Coleman that basically said "if the combat sucks the rest of the game doesn't matter because nobody will care".  That's basically 100% what happened with this game, their take on action combat was simply not fun in any way.

[Pendan]

I liked the combat so that was not my problem.

[Paelos]

I didn't and the questing was boring.

[Pennilenko]

The combat and the questing turned me off around the mid 30s.  The combat needed to be much quicker, with less of the "dodge constantly" mechanic. The questing was mostly bear ass collection, with very little disguise. I hate to be that type of player, but I love big fucking numbers and mobs nearly instantly exploding. Combat in an MMO needs to make me feel like a bad ass like 90 percent of the time and the other 10 percent would be me going up against the NPCs that represent the kind of threat that I am to normal NPCs.

[Typhon]

I am that player as well.  Large numbers of chafe that are easily (and expertly!) dispatched leading to a boss/elite mob that takes more effort.  Attacks that feel right.  Abilities that synergize with other abilities which adds complexity and versatility to combat.

Apparently that is really hard to do.

[Draegan]

You would of hated early beta, every mob was a boss  fight almost. TTK was like 2 or 3 times longer.

It was fun because it was challenging. The world was dangerous. It became tedious quickly because combat sucked. They managed to find the perfect combo of tedious and boring.

GW2 was a perfect example. You could mow through mobs twice as fast and it was fun as hell. Then they upped all mob stats.

Devs apparently have to make the leveling process x hours, and to stretch it out they up TTK because they're shut devs. It's the disconnect between lead devs and the people with the money

[Rendakor]

TERA does that well; most mobs are weak garbage, only difficult as attrition or if you overpull. Then there are the bosses and BAMs which are about on par with elites in WoW: usually soloable with great care, skill and maybe some consumables. It's been said often but it's the best action MMO out there.

[Pennilenko]

Draegan's last post reminded me that I haven't played GW2 in forever, I think I will load it up.

[Ginaz]

I have a key for a 30 day sub on the NA servers if anyone wants it.